The 33rd President of the United States
A captain of artillery in France
In the mires, the muck of World War I
Selfless, stern, determined so
The consequences of conflict
Mold the mind of a humorous man
'Tween the death of President Roosevelt
The Manhattan Project and all our fate
They thought he was beat "Dewey Beats Truman"
But you can't keep a good man down
Knowing all that he had charge of
His general - "Bess was the boss"
In the last year of World War II
The decision to drop a-bombs
The cost of a man's guilt haunts
A scale of humanity lost to them gained
Surely the setting sun found a lone man
Staring a thousand-yard stare
A man tires of war and tragedy
Seeing clearly things politics cannot
Generals looking for conflict left
Mercy manifest in the Berlin Airlift
On his desk, a sign "The Buck Stops Here"
Truly he lived up to its presence
History does few men the honour earned
No one could walk away from that office
With a sense of something wasn't just done
Or the responsibility of fate for many
A captain of artillery - the thick of battle
Decided the fate of the world back then